Hello everyone!
Back when I was a child I had a strong sense of autonomy, lots of energy, creativity and loved to do things my own way. It was often not appreciated by surrounding adults. Especially not by my grandmother. She often saw me as tricky, difficult to handle and felt like she had to "watch over my every move, so I don't do anything stupid".
Now me and my grandmother don't see each other very often. We live in different countries (my parents migrated), and only see each other on holidays. As a child me and my brother often came to them on summer breaks. My grandparents are a bit strong headed. Things should go their way, no questioning it. A bit old school if i may say so. For me this was very tough to accept. I never meant to be rude or to cause trouble on purpose. I was simply curious why things were the way they were and had lots of energy. And when people tried to set rules to that i often just did it in secrecy instead.
Being 20 now i have matured a lot. I'm still very playful in my ways and am really embracing the freedom to be my own person without needing anyone allowing me to be. I moved to boarding school at 15 and have never permanently lived at home since then. I am (still) very independent and have order in my life. I don't do drugs, I'm careful with savings, have a stable relationship and a job.
For some reason my grandma really fails to see this. Maybe its because we don't see each other too much or because of old age. I don't know. But what I do know is that's it's really bugging me. Whenever she visits she will question me for such silly things. Can I really take the big knife to cut of some herbs in the garden? What am i actually doing with my life? Tells me to help out more at home and care for my mom. (I don't even live there anymore and my mother needs to be able to get her life together herself. ).
In our family it's a bit of a hidden rule to just play along and ignore everything my grandparents do. They are old and in their home country (Germany) old people are highly respected in the community. So its not our place to say anything. My parents back me up whenever they act out on me. But it keeps on coming. And soon we are all gonna see each other in my family home again. I really want to set some boundaries without creating a big drama out of it.
Do you guys have any advice on how to settle this peacefully?
